


Precious

by Macx



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-23
Updated: 2011-05-23
Packaged: 2017-10-19 17:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macx/pseuds/Macx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>episode tag to Precious Cargo</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precious

 

“You kissed her.”  
Trip fidgeted, uncomfortable. “Yes... Well, no... she kissed me.”  
“You kissed back.”  
“It was an instinctive reaction!”  
Malcolm raised an eyebrow. “I see. And then you instinctually had sex with her.”  
“No!” Trip shook his head desperately. “No! We didn’t sleep with each other. Just.. sleep with each other.”  
Malcolm shot him a strange look. “Care to explain that?”  
“She... she wanted company. She wanted someone to hold her. She was scared, Mal. So was I,” he added softly. “I mean, I had no idea where we were and if you’d ever find us and all...”  
“So you cuddled.”  
“Kinda. Nothin’ happened besides the kissin’. Really. I swear t’god, there was nothin’ else!”  
“Except running around in your underwear...”  
“It was hot! And my uniform was completely soaking wet. She had thrown me in a pool of water, okay? I had hung it up to dry.”  
“And then you two went bathing again. To.. cool down?”  
Frustrated, Trip ran a hand through his tousled hair. “I was fightin’. I was nearly drowned! I think the last thing on my mind was havin’ my wicked way with her!”  
Malcolm’s head tilted a fraction. “But you would have. You already were.”  
“No!”  
“It’s what being bisexual is all about,” Reed went on, voice calm and almost clinical.  
“Okay, so she was attractive, but I’m in love with you, Malcolm!” Trip argued.  
“She made you an offer.”  
“And I was flattered, all right? Still am! But I won’t dump you in favor of some alien princess, Mal. I love you!”  
Malcolm was silently for a long time, just looking at him, and Trip was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable. Kaitaama was gone, the Krios ship had left hours ago, and he had really been looking forward to normalcy after a week of chaos, but it didn’t seem to be possible.  
“I know I screwed up,” he said softly, seriously. “She was attractive, I confess to looking at her, wondering... but it was just a flight of fancy, Malcolm. I appreciated her beauty, but that’s about it. I mean... even couples can confess to seeing beauty in others.”  
“Not many go around kissing strangers, though.”  
Tucker winced. “I made a mistake. Please... Mal... it never got any further. You have to believe me!”  
“Why should I?”  
“’Cause I love ya and don’t wanna lose you over a misunderstandin’. That’s why.”  
Gray eyes met pleading blue ones and Malcolm stepped forward, his face not giving anything away.  
“We’ve been together for over a year now, Trip. I’ve always been afraid to lose you to someone else, especially a woman. You’re attracted to them as they are attracted to you.”  
“No, I’m not!”  
“As you said, you appreciate the beauty. You flirt.”  
“Malcolm...”  
“I can’t compete with them, Trip. I never could.”  
“You can,” Trip breathed. “Gawd, you can. You’re so much more. I love you, every bit and part of you. I’ve never been so serious about a relationship, Malcolm. Never.”  
“Until another relationship comes along. One that is even better,” Malcolm drove his point home. “A heterosexual one, right? Something you don’t have to hide!”  
Trip stepped back, blinking, shocked. “No... no... We’re not hiding. Everyone aboard knows. It’s... Malcolm, what’s going on with you?”  
“Maybe I’ve had my epiphany, Commander Tucker. Maybe I finally realized that this is going nowhere.” Malcolm sighed and shook his head. “You are what you are. You can’t help it.”  
“You... you’re splitting us up?” Tucker whispered, voice shaky.  
“You already have, Trip.”  
“No!” He caught his lover’s arm and stopped him from proceeding to the door. “Mal, no! Don’t do this to me!”  
But Reed twisted out of the grasp, face strangely blank and expressionless. “You’re free to pursue your pleasure now, Commander. It was nice while it lasted. Good day.”  
Trip felt lightheaded, shocked, unable to think. He stared at the closed door, hearing a soft moan from somewhere.  
“Malcolm! No.... No!”

 

 

Someone touched him, his face, his chest, his arms. Gentle hands stroked over his trembling body and he opened his eyes, drawing in harsh breaths of air. Disjointed images flashed through his overtaxed mind and a moan left his lips.  
“Malcolm...”  
“I’m here,” a wonderfully familiar voice answered him. “I’m here, love. It’s okay.”  
Warmth touched his forehead. A kiss soothed him, rugged breathing slowly getting back under control. He turned into the hard, muscular body at his side, feeling strong arms come around him. Trip clung to his lover, feeling new tremors start.  
“Bad dream?” Malcolm whispered into his hair, never ceasing his soothing strokes.  
“Yeah. Real bad.”  
“Can you remember what about?”  
He nodded jerkily.  
“Want to share?”  
He shivered again. Did he want to share? Did he want to tell his lover what he feared? Because nightmares were just that. Fear. Subconscious fear the waking mind worked through at night.  
He had to confess that after Kaitaama, he had been afraid of Malcolm throwing a fit, leaving him, doing something even worse. Nothing of the like had happened. There had only been this odd look in his lover’s eyes, the way he had raised an eyebrow, then went about business as usual. It had thrown Trip off kilter and the nightmare had probably stemmed from that.  
“You left me,” Trip finally said, voice muffled by Malcolm’s shirt-clad shoulder.  
Reed hugged him tightly. “I’m here.”  
“Not in my dreams. You left me over... Kaitaama.”  
“Oh. Well.” Malcolm brushed a hand over the tousled hair. “I see.”  
“This whole.. thing...  wasn’t serious, Mal. You’ve gotta believe me! It didn’t mean as single thing. She kissed me, I kinda kissed back, that’s all.” Trip clung to his lover, afraid Malcolm would push him away in reality, too. He avoided looking at his lover.  
“You told me. I believe you.”  
“I mean I flirted, yeah, I know. I wanted to get her to open up, push her off that high’n mighty pedestal. Nothin’ happened.”  
Another kiss was planted on his head. “I believe you, Trip.”  
“You never told me.”  
Gray eyes shot him a surprised look.  
“When I told ya about it all... you just gave me that weird look. Like... likr you were... I dunno. Disappointed?” The last was barely above a whisper.  
“I was a lot of things, Trip,” Malcolm said quietly after a while of tense silence. “Among other emotions, I felt disappointment, yes. You risked us for... a roll in the hay, so to speak.”  
“We never had sex!” Trip protested, feeling his nightmare develop more and more into real life.  
“I know that. You weren’t the perfect gentleman either.”  
He swallowed. “I love you, Malcolm. I’d never cheat on you!”  
“We’re not married,” was Reed’s matter-of-fact answer. “You’re allowed to... look somewhere else.”  
“No!” Trip raised his head and stared hard at the other man, one hand coming up to touch the sharp-angled face. “You're right. No, we’re not married. And no, I’m not allowed to stray. I know what bein’ faithful means. I don’t cheat. Never. You have to believe me, Malcolm. Please.”  
Reed sat up, face all serious. He took Trip’s caressing hand and squeezed it. “I do. I trust you, Trip. With my life and with my soul.”  
Trip froze at the confession, at the promise. He knew what power he could wield over Malcolm, how much it had pained his lover to hear about Kaitaama.  
“And I’m relieved that you told me, that you trusted me with this. You could have simply... erased that incident from your mind.”  
“Not my style.”  
Malcolm drew him into an embrace and held on tight. His life line.  
“I love you,” the engineer murmured.  
Malcom kissed him. Gently, with soft pressure, and he answered the same way.  
They laid back down, Trip snuggled up as physically close as was humanly possible, his right hand clenching possessively into the fabric of Malcolm’s shirt. Malcolm’s hands were stroking him reassuringly, making him relax more and more.  
“So you flirted with her?” Malcolm asked after a while, a clearly teasing note to his voice.  
Trip chuckled. “Yeah, well... She got on my nerves more than anything else. Always complainin’, bitchin’, makin’ my life hard. Everything culminated when we got into another fight on the planet. I was givin’ her a piece of my mind when she caught my head and kissed me.”  
“And you kissed back.”  
Trip swallowed, feeling remnants of the nightmare resurface. “Yes. It was... instinctive.”  
Malcolm’s hands never ceased their strokes. “You were under a lot of stress. It could be called a natural reaction.”  
“It wasn’t. I wasn’t really attracted to her, Mal.”  
“Then what?”  
“Pissed off? Annoyed? She was so... so... royal. A royal pain the ass.”  
“You always kiss the people you’re annoyed with?”  
“Nope. Usually I deck them, but that hadn’t been an option,” Trip joked weakly.  
“It would have been diplomatically unwise.”  
“Yeah, that, too. Mal?”  
“Hm?”  
“I’d never do anything to split us up. I love you more than anythin’.”  
“Like I said, I believe you, Trip. I really do.”  
Tucker sighed, snuggling against him again. “Thank you.”  
“Think you can go back to sleep?”  
“As long as I’ve got you... yes.”  
Malcolm pressed their mouths together, his tongue brushing over the blond’s lips, and Trip opened them under the gently insisting pressure. He poured everything in this kiss, everything he felt, he wanted, he needed and wished for. Malcolm framed his head with his hands and nipped, licked and gently bit at his mouth, lips and surrounding skin.  
“You’re got me, Trip,” he promised. “Now go back to sleep.”  
Tucker smiled. Malcolm drew the blanket over them and Trip sighed with pleasure, closing his eyes. It took him a while to get back to sleep, but he finally did. Safe and warm in Malcolm’s arms, and without further nightmares.


End file.
